Bas Rutton interview

Discussion in 'MMA' started by karl52, Nov 25, 2010.

  1. karl52

    karl52 openminded

  2. SenseiMattKlein

    SenseiMattKlein Engage, Maverick

    He has some good instructional videos on the web. I have a few on my iPhone. A true legend. Looks like he's slimmed down a bit.
     
  3. KidKrav

    KidKrav Valued Member

    Bas Rutten has always struck me as a fairly well spoken and intelligent guy, rare and underappreciated virtues for professional fighters. He obviously has a rough streak but he seems to be a good communicator and his accomplishments as a trailblazer in MMA give him a lot of credibility.

    Did anyone catch where his new gym is?
     
  4. february

    february Valued Member

    Bas - a class act.
     
  5. SenseiMattKlein

    SenseiMattKlein Engage, Maverick

    Westlake Village, north of LA, as per this link KidKrav.

    https://www.basrutten.com/hex/news/Elite-MMA-Instruction-Gym-Training/
     
  6. KidKrav

    KidKrav Valued Member

    This really is a great find Karl. Hearing a guy like Bas Rutten say the things he does in this interview really is awesome. He goes from the funny:

    I would wake up at night and wake up my wife and put her in a submission. I said ‘Man’ and suddenly I came up with a submission, you know? Whoa. (She said) ‘Agghhh!!!’ I said ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah!’.
    Yeah she’s a good one.
    *laughter* 27:36


    .. To serious training discussion where he speaks against some commonly held misconceptions, namely that “you can’t learn from tapes”.

    I think that sometimes reading what a person says can help to emphasize points and improve understanding. Some people also may not have time to watch the whole interview, so I jotted down some of what I consider to be the highlights. Bas said:


    I never had a coach, I always watched tapes, and just made it better. 15:12

    Now don’t get me wrong. There’s value in having an experienced teacher, but the idea that you can’t learn anything from examining materials, instructional videos or actual fights, is misguided.
    Bas Said:


    When I watch fights it doesn’t matter, Thai boxing, boxing, whatever it is, as soon as I see an 8 count I rewind the tape and I see what the set up to the combination was and what the actual combination was that gave the guy an 8 count. I write that down, and then boom, knockout comes. I write that combination down here. And I used to do this all the time. And then if you look at K1 and they have combinations that they drop people with… Mike Tyson, right hook the body right uppercut. He knocked like 8 guys out like that. You know?
    Well write it down and then you go spar and see if it works for you. And if it works for you, you keep it and now it’s one of yours. But if doesn’t work, well you pick something else.
    28:50

    And I would just watch tapes, and we would see a submission, and then we would take it to the gym, and we would start rolling, and we would go for the submission. And I would say ‘Ok let’s see if I can make this better’, you know? ‘Oh wait a minute, if I do… can you escape?’ ‘Yeah I can escape’ ‘How can you escape?’ ‘Like this’ ‘Ok, so how can I do to stop that? Oh, I can do this, can you escape now?’ ‘No, but if you bring…’ ‘Ok, yeah’… So always breaking down, breaking down. 24:30

    And because I had no teacher I just thought everything myself... And I saw a leg lock and I said ‘I can make that better ‘. They said ‘you really think you’re so good’? ‘No but I know that I can make THAT better, that doesn’t look good to me’ ya know, and then I start working on it. 21:45


    This cuts to the core of one of the biggest debates in martial arts. I see people saying things like "jack of all trades, master of none" or "you can spend your whole life training in one style and still not master it". It seems to me that these arguments imply that valuable skill and experience cannot be gained through experimentation. Bruce Lee spent a good deal of his career arguing against this type of thinking but it still persists to this day, often to the detriment of students.

    Bas Said:
    All these guys who are in Jiu Jitsu and all these guys, they’re “polluted”. They make mistakes that, it’s like a hurt. It’s in boxing. It’s in every sport. Everybody just follows whatever he said. Why? Because he’s a fifth degree so he’s gotta be right. If you tell them ‘why do you do this?’ ‘Well he told me so’. That’s not the right…. That’s not an answer. You need to answer why that is.
    With me you can ask me anything. If I hold a wrist this, or this, or this, or this, it all has a reason. And I will tell you the reason. You know, I can give you, whatever situation I’m in, I can tell you why I do this or why I do that or why I do this. And that’s not with the other guys.
    15:25


    Tradition can be a good thing or a bad thing. If you use it as a means to develop yourself and honor those before you it's positive. If tradition causes you to be close minded and ignore that the Martial Arts are fluid instead of rigid it is detrimental... And you cannot honor your predecessors with failure as you would with success.

    The truth is that no two practitioners of any style have ever been totally alike in technique. You can spend your entire life chasing "mastery" (whatever that means) of a style which is not optimal for you due to your body type. You also deprive yourself of other techniques which might have worked for you.

    There are many ways to develop yourself in the Martial Arts. In my opinion, training hard with an open mind is the best one.
     
  7. SenseiMattKlein

    SenseiMattKlein Engage, Maverick

    "Tradition can be a good thing or a bad thing. If you use it as a means to develop yourself and honor those before you it's positive. If tradition causes you to be close minded and ignore that the Martial Arts are fluid instead of rigid it is detrimental... And you cannot honor your predecessors with failure as you would with success.

    The truth is that no two practitioners of any style have ever been totally alike in technique. You can spend your entire life chasing "mastery" (whatever that means) of a style which is not optimal for you due to your body type. You also deprive yourself of other techniques which might have worked for you.

    There are many ways to develop yourself in the Martial Arts. In my opinion, training hard with an open mind is the best one."
    Those are some wise words, KidKrav.
     
  8. karl52

    karl52 openminded

    I totally agree
     
  9. KidKrav

    KidKrav Valued Member

    Thanks guys.

    Practitioners of other styles often say that MMA is all about brawling and that the fighters all have lousy technique. There are certainly some guys that get by more on athleticism than anything else but it seems to me that the guys that do best (guys like Fedor, Couture, Rutten, Anderson Silva) have spent a lot of time working out a skill set and applied strategy that work for them.

    MMA really is a thinking man's sport as much as it's a blood sport. Part of the reason it's such a success is that it appeals to different types of people for different reasons.
     
  10. Pitfighter

    Pitfighter Valued Member

    Bar Rutten is my favorite retired fighter. I think he has that unique blend of being funny as hell and smart w/out coming off as obnoxious. If I lived in Cali or Sweden I would definitely be hitting up his gyms
     
  11. KidKrav

    KidKrav Valued Member

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5nPZcCGnDs"]YouTube - Bas Rutten and Kevin Randleman Clash[/ame]
     
  12. JSun

    JSun Valued Member

    Just the segment on breaking the grip to defend the armbar made this worth watching. Bas is the MAN! :cool:
     
  13. Matt F

    Matt F Valued Member

    Its good when reputable people in any field prove things wrong I think it gives confidence to not follow the rules and experiment and for everyone to go on their own path to getting better. I know of a few other very good martial artist who do self teaching and who experiment and watch fights to see what the best are doing and then put their personal twist on it. I also now attempt to do this. The big big key to it all though is that these guys fight and test it for real. Everything has to be tested in a fight no matter where its learnt from. If thats not done then ,thats when self learning wont do as much good.
     

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